Our Ruly Nature

It is in our nature to need rules. By enabling better social productivity rules beats no rules. We can clarify our biological rule dependence by analogy with language and tools. Also by noticing that we are apt to ape more than apes.

We are born able to automatically absorb the rules of our mother tongues simply by hearing other tongues using them. Like our language-rule-processors we have other social-rule-processors that acquire our native cultures norms, either tacitly by social osmosis or explicitly by education. As with grammar, certain social rules are neither choosable nor easily changeable.

Rules not followed can’t be adaptive, which might be why we ape more than apes. Infant chimps shown an unnecessarily complex task behave differently than children. Chimps “are more rational” seeing an easier way they efficiently use it, but children tend to mimic the demonstrator. Our preference for social learning likely evolved to let us avoid reinventing behavioral wheels and because using the working solutions of wiser others can overcome the limits of our own smarts.

Good rules are as important as good tools for our survival. Christopher Boehm believes that 250,000 years ago our ancestors evolved a different kind of rule-set. They transitioned from an “apelike ‘might is right’...social order to one also based on internalizing rules.” His data shows modern hunter gatherers universally use “counter dominant coalitions” to prevent the strong from dominating resources. They became self-policing and feared violating community rules because punishment by exile or execution was as bad for survival chances as predators.

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